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You are a bold and courageous person, afraid of nothing. High on a hill top near your home, there stands a dilapidated old mansion. Some say the place is haunted, but you don't believe in such myths. One dark and stormy night, a light appears in the topmost window in the tower of the old house. You decide to investigate... and you never return...

Interesting link, thanks! I appreciate the info and another perspective. I'm trying to recall where I heard the Conan theory, I thought it was canonical. But I may have read it in the Art of He-Man book.

they were planning it as a Conan line, until they realized Conan was rated R. the early designs for HeMan predated conan but it was Conan that brought it to the forefront and got the line going
I enjoyed the documentary, watched it yesterday

That She-Ra myth seems to be the "Star Wars killed Mego" garbage but in He-Man terms. I know it was midly addressed in this movie but I felt it also explained what really happened, grew too fast, key early developers left, late shipments signalled a loss of faith in the line and kids moved on.

I sincerely remember when the movie hit it felt like He-man was sort of dead at retail. Kids were more interested in Transformers and GI Joe.

...I felt it also explained what really happened, grew too fast, key early developers left, late shipments signalled a loss of faith in the line and kids moved on.

I sincerely remember when the movie hit it felt like He-man was sort of dead at retail. Kids were more interested in Transformers and GI Joe.

Yep to all that. The movie release was so late, it felt like a last ditch effort to revive the line, not capitalize on it.

Re: Conan. That's the part of the story that's always fogged up. Mattel held a Conan movie toy license at that time, but were tired of paying fees for lines that weren't successful. The link Werewolf posted shows the trackback from Sweet is to '79 with Taylor's Frazetta inspired Conan. Conan The Barbarian was in the works since '77. Mattel knew this. Star Wars made all fantasy licensing a hot commodity.

Oliver Stone was the original writer, possible director for Conan. His approach was post-apocalyptic, like Thundarr. The blend of swords and tech was the trend. While I don't believe Taylor and Sweet had direct knowledge of what was going on with Conan's development, I don't question they knew Matty was tired of paying licenses. So Matty tracked against trends while developers worked on knock-offs. '82 Conan hits big. '83 MOTU toys hit big. '84 Conan the Destroyer.

The problem Dino and Pressman had was Frazetta wasn't credited as a producer/designer etc...for the movie. He didn't sign on for whatever reason. If he had, Mattel would be paying royalties. They got extremely lucky.

Interesting link, thanks! I appreciate the info and another perspective. I'm trying to recall where I heard the Conan theory, I thought it was canonical. But I may have read it in the Art of He-Man book.

The way Mark Taylor tells it, someone in marketing started pursuing the Conan license while they were in the middle of developing He-Man, which he called a colossal mistake. Luckily the judge in the case ruled that pointing out that He-Man was a half-naked muscle-bound character was not enough to argue for infringement (there are a ton of similar Conan-like characters in comic book stories throughout the 70s and early 80s). Interestingly Mark did the design work for the abandoned Conan line as well.

Mark was definitely influenced by Conan, but also Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon and a host of others.